Abstract Titanium carbide (TiC) has been considered as one of the most significant metal carbides for manufacturing a new generation of cermets. However, overhigh sintering temperature results in that dense sintered-bulk of TiC without metal binders is hard to realize at relative low temperature, which limits its applications. Here, we prepared nonstoichiometric TiCx (0.3 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) powers with carbon vacancy defects by mechanical alloying (MA) and then sintered into a cylindrical compact at high temperature and high pressure (HTHP). The mechanical properties of nonstoichiometric TiCx were obtained by an indentation method. Vickers hardness of TiC0.3, TiC0.4 and TiC0.5 compacts are 15 GPa, 25 GPa and 24 GPa, fracture toughness of TiC0.3, TiC0.4 and TiC0.5 are 6 MPa m1/2, 3.8 MPa m1/2 and 3.5 MPa m1/2, respectively. Our studies indicate that introduction of carbon vacancies dramatically reduces the sintering temperature because of diffusion paths provided by carbon vacancies, without the deterioration of the mechanical properties. The successful synthesis of TiCx bulks may provide a low-temperature sintering route for refractory ceramic compounds such as VC, NbC and WC, etc.

中文翻译：

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非化学计量TiC x (0.3≤ x ≤0.5)的加工和机械性能

摘要 碳化钛（TiC）被认为是用于制造新一代金属陶瓷的最重要的金属碳化物之一。然而，过高的烧结温度导致没有金属结合剂的TiC致密烧结体在较低温度下难以实现，限制了其应用。在这里，我们通过机械合金化 (MA) 制备了具有碳空位缺陷的非化学计量 TiCx (0.3 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) 粉末，然后在高温高压 (HTHP) 下烧结成圆柱形压块。非化学计量 TiCx 的机械性能是通过压痕法获得的。TiC0.3、TiC0.4和TiC0.5压块的维氏硬度分别为15GPa、25GPa和24GPa，TiC0.3、TiC0.4和TiC0.5的断裂韧性分别为6MPa·m1/2、3.8MPa·m1/分别为 2 和 3.5 MPa m1/2。我们的研究表明，由于碳空位提供的扩散路径，碳空位的引入显着降低了烧结温度，而不会降低机械性能。TiCx块体的成功合成可能为VC、NbC和WC等难熔陶瓷化合物提供低温烧结途径。